


The Very 1st Thanksgiving To Me

by PigSlay



Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Gen, Humor, I don't know if this is culturally accurate (re: Brits and Thanksgiving), but I just wanted to create something cute and fun
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-31
Updated: 2019-12-31
Packaged: 2021-02-26 02:13:59
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,372
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21995824
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PigSlay/pseuds/PigSlay
Summary: When Zayn and Harry get too sick to fly back home to the UK during Thanksgiving Break, they decide to make the most of it and celebrate Thanksgiving for the very first time in their lives.
Relationships: Zayn Malik&Harry Styles
Comments: 4
Kudos: 13





	The Very 1st Thanksgiving To Me

**Author's Note:**

  * For [leighbot](https://archiveofourown.org/users/leighbot/gifts).



> I don't know One Direction but as far as I'm aware they didn't meet each other in an American University chasing undergraduate degrees.
> 
> My, my, my, what a semester it has been! This semester I took “Fundamentals of Creative Writing” and it was difficult because as people who have followed my stories know, my happy place tends to be 10,000 – 15,000 words and in this class we had to learn how to write a compelling 3 – 7 page short story (about 1,000 words). It was hard to squeeze my ideas down to fit in that tiny space, but (hopefully) I’ve gotten the hang of it now. You can decide that on your own though, when you finish reading this. Hahaha.
> 
> Thank you dearmrsawyer for putting on this little Secret Santa. It feels good to be writing about My BoysTM again, even if it's tinier than normal. And thank you Angel for reading this over, I would not have felt confident publishing it otherwise.
> 
> Happy New Year to my giftee! I hope you like your story! :)

“Yes,” Harry says, having to practically fight with his throat to let him speak without coughing. “I realize we said we would be going home during the break, but that was before we both got bed-ridden.”

Zayn watches from his own bed as Harry tries to get permission from Student Services to mark their room as occupied over the break. Technically, the deadline to tell the University if you are staying over Thanksgiving was yesterday, but yesterday the two of them thought they were well enough to make the flight back to the UK. Today when they woke up they were both barely able to move.

“I know, I know,” Harry says, raising his voice and then regretting it as he practically explodes with coughs. “Listen – listen – I will pay whatever fee I need to, _okay_?” He pinches his forehead. “Okay, I need to take some ibuprofen or something. Charge my account until it’s negative, I don’t care anymore. Goodbye.”

He hangs up the phone with a huff. Zayn stares at him as Harry reaches over to his bedside table and takes two ibuprofen pills in his hand. Harry feels Zayn’s eyes on him so he turns ever so slightly and asks, “what?”

“I don’t think I’ve ever heard you yell at anyone like that before,” Zayn states with a cough of his own. He reaches over to the tissue box to blow his nose.

“Well,” Harry responds, sounding kind of guilty now that whatever that weird burst of energy was, is over. “There’s something about being bed-ridden that makes me angry, I guess…” he sniffles. For a second, Zayn almost thinks Harry is going to start crying over being mean to the Uni officials.

There’s silence for a few moments. Zayn’s parents told him that he should do what he needs to do in order to get better, even if that means not coming home, but he still feels guilty. “Do you really think they’re gonna charge us for this?”

“I don’t know…” Harry draws out, sounding like he’s in another world. He closes his eyes. “Ask me again after I’ve taken a nap.”

“Okay,” Zayn agrees, letting his eyes slowly close. “Sounds like a plan.”

About four hours later, Harry opens his eyes. He doesn’t make a single sound when doing so, but Zayn opens his eyes too. Zayn has never been a light sleeper, but after almost a semester spent sharing a room with Harry, he’s grown attuned to the other man’s movements. The sun has almost finished setting and Zayn should probably turn on the light since he is the one closest to it, but part of him likes the room being lit by the barely-there sun.

Harry rolls over slightly and grabs his phone off the table, blinking a few times at the sudden brightness of the screen. “Oh, cool, I have one missed call from our Uni and one missed call from my dad.”

He puts the phone up to his ear to listen to the voicemails in question. Zayn watches Harry’s face to see if he can pick up any clues as to what’s being said. The first voicemail makes Harry’s shoulders get more hunched as it goes on and when it ends he lets out a sigh. He clicks on the next message and it seems to make his shoulders relax again, although not completely. Zayn watches, patiently waiting for a comment about what either of those messages said.

After a few moments of silence, Harry finally speaks. “Well, the good news is that my dad was able to haggle with our Uni to lower the price we’ll pay each day. He was, however, unable to get them to drop it all together.”

A few seconds pass of Zayn processing this information. It’s hard enough already to afford to go here, even with a scholarship. He feels guilty adding even one more penny to his family’s bill, even if it’s for a reason that’s out of his control. 

“What should we do now, then?” Zayn asks, hoping to put an end to his guilty thoughts by speaking. That almost never works, but maybe it will this time.

Harry considers this for a minute. “I don’t know about you, but since the sun is already going down, I think… we should go back to sleep and deal with it tomorrow.”

“Works for me.”

They close their eyes at the same time and fall asleep almost instantly.

***

It’s been two days since the boys’ break started, and since then, they’ve been slowly getting better. They’re still sneezing a lot and taking a fair amount of ibuprofen, but they are finally able to walk around without feeling like they’re going to faint, so that’s nice.

Since the campus dining hall doesn’t run during break and they have finally run out of food in their mini-fridge, Zayn has decided it’s time to go to the store for food. He takes two DayQuil pills and starts to grab some reusable bags. He doesn’t know how much food he’ll end up buying, but packs all three just in case.

“You really think it’s a good idea for you to drive while you’re sick?” Harry asks, sounding just like Zayn’s mother.

“I’m feeling a lot better than I did yesterday,” Zayn points out. “And besides, we can’t get any better if we don’t have anything to eat.”

“True,” Harry contends, rising from his bed. “Alright, I’ll come too.” He thinks for a minute and then grabs the tissue box from the table. “Better safe than sorry.”

As if the universe were listening, at that exact moment Zayn sneezes. “Bless you,” Harry says, handing him a tissue from the box as delicately as if it were a rose from a bouquet. What a nerd.

Zayn takes it, mumbles, “thanks,” and starts walking to exit the room, Harry locking it behind them. Going down the halls during break is creepy; no music thumping from the doors, nobody laughing at something they saw on YouTube…

Zayn’s thoughts are interrupted when he reaches the outdoors. Even though he’s wearing a coat and his warmest trousers, the wind is still sending shivers through him. He tries to remind himself that it’s much colder than this in England, but somehow that’s no comfort. He picks up speed so that he can get into his car faster, surprised that he has the ability to run with how just two days ago he could barely move.

He wastes no time in turning the keys in the ignition, begging the car to warm up quicker. A few moments later, Harry opens the passenger door and takes a seat. “You took off so fast I almost thought you were going to leave me behind,” Harry comments.

“Couldn’t do that,” Zayn says as he starts to put the car in reverse. “Who else would nag me about making sure I buy my vegetables?”

Harry giggles softly at that, sneezing and wiping his nose. The drive there is pretty quick and silent, other than the sneezes here and there.

Upon entering the store, Zayn grabs a buggy. He doesn’t anticipate buying a lot of stuff, but it’s a force of habit.

“What do you plan on getting?” Harry asks, eyeing the buggy curiously.

Zayn shrugs, going to the produce section on autopilot. “Don’t know, really. Do you have any ideas?”

Harry hums, thinking about this. “Well, I’ve never celebrated Thanksgiving before, and now that we’re proper Americans I feel like it’s, like, a rite of passage.”

Zayn laughs. “Okay,” he responds, turning to head towards the frozen section. “So, like, just turkey and that’s it? Do they eat anything else other than that?”

“Oh, yeah!” Harry says, opening Safari on his phone. “I just saw a post on my favorite food blog about it! ‘Top ten cheapest (and most delicious) Thanksgiving treats!’”

Zayn shakes his head. Of course Harry would have already looked this up, and have it saved on his phone to come back to later. Zayn loves his roommate so much.

Over the next hour or so (really, he loses track of time), Harry takes Zayn on a journey through the grocery store, getting ingredients for stuffing, pumpkin pie, mashed potatoes. They look for turkey but are unable to find one (probably because they’ve all already sold out) so they decide to buy a chicken instead. They also get a few non-Thanksgiving foods for when the holiday inevitably ends but the break is not over for another three days. It’s actually a lot more fun than Zayn expected, and darn it if he isn’t absolutely delighted by how excited the prospect of cooking a Thanksgiving meal makes Harry.

When they get to the check-out and the total shows up on the screen, Zayn’s eyes bulge out. Harry appears behind him and whispers, “Don’t worry, I got this. My mum put more money in my account yesterday.”

“But what about the money we have to pay the Uni for staying over break?” Zayn points out.

“Like I said, don’t worry,” Harry responds.

 _Well that’s pretty difficult,_ Zayn thinks to himself, _because all I ever do is worry._ Still, Harry is putting his card in the chip reader like that’s the end of the conversation.

Harry walks over to the buggy and it takes Zayn a moment to remember to follow behind. They put the bags in the car and drive back to their dorm, Harry practically vibrating with excitement over the prospect of making this food tomorrow.

Safe to say they don’t have enough space in their mini-fridge for all of it, but apparently a lot of people took home their food for the holiday because the refrigerator in the common room has enough extra space for them.

When they get done putting all their groceries away, they realize that, for the first time since getting sick, they aren’t tired. Harry’s excitement over the idea of cooking a “proper American” meal was better than any caffeine for Zayn.

“So,” Harry says with a smile. “Wanna watch sappy Christmas movies until we get tired?”

“I thought our lecturemates said that anybody who does Christmas stuff before Thanksgiving ends is an a***,” Zayn teases.

Harry rolls his eyes. “Listen, I’m only an American when it benefits me. Like cooking a gigantic feast for myself and my best friend.” That causes Zayn to crack up, and he laughs so hard it stops making a sound after a while.

Once the joke has worn off into occasional giggles, Zayn snuggles next to Harry in his bed and they watch sappy Christmas movies.

***

It’s Thursday – Thanksgiving, Zayn remembers, as he slowly rises from the bed. He looks at the time: 11:30 AM. Nothing out of the ordinary for him, but this is a _holiday_ he reminds himself, so sleeping in that long was probably like committing sacrilege. He turns to face Harry’s bed, and just as he expected, Harry isn’t there. Zayn’s pretty sure he knows exactly where to find him though, so he stands up, puts on fresh clothing, and walks down the stairs to the common room.

Sure enough, Harry’s in the kitchen, staring at the oven and stove in front of him, looking proud of himself. Zayn knocks on the open door and Harry startles slightly before turning around.

He looks a little disappointed. “I was hoping you would stay sleeping for just…” he looks over at the oven. “…Ten more minutes, so that I could wake you up with chicken.”

Zayn laughs. “That’s the first time I can remember anybody in my life saying they wish I had slept longer.” He walks in, breathing in the sweet smell of the chicken and all the other foods that lay in various places on the counter.

It’s definitely not a big kitchen; a maximum of three people can be in here at a time before things start getting messy. Still, Harry has found a way to fit all of his creations in the little area they have. Zayn takes a seat on the floor and stares at the oven waiting for the timer to count down; he’s never been good at patience, especially with chicken on the line, but he thinks this will be worth the wait.

“So,” Zayn says, in an attempt to be less bored as these nine minutes pass by. “Do they, like, give out presents during Thanksgiving? Because I didn’t buy anything.”

Harry laughs. “No, they don’t. It’s mostly just about eating and, like, giving thanks for what you have, I guess.”

Zayn just nods. He thinks about what he’s thankful for; his family, his Uni, his roommate… he has a lot of things to be thankful for. He wishes he could be in the UK with his parents, but he’s glad he didn’t get stuck here alone.

Nine minutes pass slowly, but finally the timer dings for the chicken. Harry practically jumps up from where he had sunk on the floor next to Zayn, grabbing his oven mits and turning off the timer. Harry carefully pulls the chicken out of the oven and sets it down, Zayn’s eyes widening with excitement as he looks at the finished product.

“Okay, okay,” Harry says, still having an ever-present pep in his step. “So, while we wait for the chicken to cool, wanna pig out on stuffing on the common room couch?”

Zayn tries not to let it show that as soon as that chicken came out of the oven he had forgotten any other foods existed. “You bet I do.”

Harry gets two plates – one for himself, one for Zayn – and fills them each with stuffing and mashed potatoes. The two of them go over to the couch and turn on the TV. The first thing that shows up on the air is the Spongebob Christmas movie. They laugh and both decide to keep it on.

Zayn doesn’t have a lot of Thanksgivings to compare this to, but he thinks this has been his favorite Thanksgiving ever. Maybe next year he will have to introduce his family to Thanksgiving, and to Harry’s cooking too.

 _Yeah_ , he thinks as he puts his head on Harry’s shoulder. _That sounds like a wonderful idea._


End file.
